Authors Note: LOL. I made myself sit down and write this chapter mostly because someone by the name of smileydommie1 sent me two e-mails within a couple days begging me to write the next chapter. So I figured if someone out there is that desperate I better post one quick. I hope you like this one smiley! I really like the end of this chapter. I was really excited about it when I got half way through the chapter and figured out exactly where all this was going to go
Chapter Ten
Die a Thousand Deaths
Life has this funny way about throwing you curve balls. Just when you think you have everything figured out, something comes along to make you realize that you're still lost in the void of life. It's kind of ironic in a way. Not a week ago I was wishing for the life back in Sunnydale with my friends and family and an Angel that I didn't have to tip toe around. And now that I have it, I'm not sure if I really want it.
Part of me wants to find a way to get back to where I belong so I can work things out with Angel and make it so people can go outside without being afraid of what's around the next corner. Then the other part of me just wants to stay here. I know here, I know what's just around the bend. Just think of all the things that I could prevent happening if I stayed. I could find a way to keep Angel from leaving, I could stay home the day of my mother's death, I could keep Faith from crossing over… so many mistakes and problems could be fixed if I turned a blind eye to what's in the future. I never thought I would see my friends or my mother again. But here I am sitting in the high school library with the very people that are supposed to be dead. It's at this very moment that I'm hit with the decision I might have to make. Go back to a world shrouded in darkness, or stay here where I know I'm loved and the things I took for granted still exist. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do or say if we figure out what is actually going on.
"Uh… say that again?"
I looked over at Xander's confused face. It was exactly the reaction that I was expecting from them. Confusion, disbelief. I had just finished telling them what I've been going through for the past couple months. Right from the point where I woke up in that alley, to the fight that led me here. I didn't spare a single detail about Leon, which was definitely something Angel could have gone without. The moment I mentioned the vampires name he took a protective stance by my side, almost as if he could save me from something that hasn't even happened yet. The only thing that I didn't put into my little story was the fact that Angel now had kids and the deaths of each person surrounding me. I tried to stick with facts more then feelings most of the time, which automatically lead to me leaving out the little bits and pieces of Angel and I's relationship in the future. To share that would just bring up more grief and confusion then I really needed or wanted at the moment.
"Which part?" I finally asked Xander. All of them had been quiet through the whole story, no matter what came up.
"How 'bout all of it?" I looked down at the table knowing what I was getting into, trying to decide if I should just shout of April Fools in hopes that they would all think this was some sort of joke. At least then I could go back to having a normal life.
"It is quite a story." Giles added.
"I'm not making it up. I wish I was but I'm not."
"Buffy, what you're telling us is practically impossible."
"Giles, we fight vampires and daemons on a daily basis. To most, that is impossible, and yet it still happens. Yes, we haven't dealt with any time traveling sort of thing yet but it can happen. It has happened. Now I'm sitting here and asking you for some help."
"We could do some research Buffy but I don't even know where to begin."
"Look in your books, go on the computer, call the watchers council. I don't care what it is we do but we need to do it fast. I don't know what's happening in the future but someone obviously wanted me out of the way for some odd reason."
"You're right. Something is going down where you're from. Something bad. All the more reason for you to stay here."
"Angel, don't." I just gave him a look. He was trying to protect me, I got that, but it was already going to be hard enough to go back to that world of darkness without him saying things that were starting to sound good in my mind.
"Alright, let's just go about this rationally. Who would want to get you out of the way?"
"Leon." It was a simple answer.
"But Buffy, you said so yourself that Leon doesn't even know that you're a slayer. He has no reason to send you back here."
"What if he found out though? I mean it's possible that he did."
"Possible, but not likely."
I turned my head towards Giles. "This whole thing isn't likely."
Sighing he took off his glasses to clean them. "Who else might want you out of the picture?"
"I don't know… maybe Spike."
"But… isn't Spike dead?" Willow looked at me confused which automatically triggered something in Giles memory that he hadn't thought of before.
"Spike and Drusilla died two weeks ago Buffy. They were caught inside a burning church. I'm trying to keep an open mind to what your saying but there are so many things that are counting against you at the moment."
I rubbed my temples. I had forgotten that there was a brief period of time when we thought Spike and Drusilla were nothing more then a pile of dust. How much could I tell them though without affecting the future? "Giles, I don't know what I can and can't tell you. What if I say something here that will prevent some huge event three hundred years down the line? I might have already done that."
"From the sound of it, I don't think your future can get any worse by telling us a few things." Willow, always the one to back me up no matter what, spoke up. And she had a point. It didn't make it any less nerve wracking though.
"Spike and Drusilla aren't dead. They got out of the church alive. Spike will be pretty hurt but the ritual helped restore Drusilla back to her full strength."
"Do you know where they're holding up?" Xander stood to go get some weapons. "We could catch them by surprise…"
"You can't kill him."
"I'm sorry. Are you living in the same reality I am? Spikes a bad guy. We kill bad guys…"
"Xander, he's in the future. He feeds us information about Leon. You kill him and we have no inside man."
"What's the point of you coming all this way then if you can't help us prevent the stuff that will eventually make life hell?"
"Killing Spike isn't going to prevent anything bad from happening. If anything it's only going to give Leon more leverage and opportunities to take control." I leaned back in my chair. This was going to get complicated really fast.
"Buffy's right. We can't try and change the future. Maybe it'd be best Buffy if you refrained from telling us anything that is going to happen in our immediate future."
"Or our life time for that matter." Willow quickly agreed with Giles. I think the whole thing about me knowing what was going to happen before it actually did was freaking her out a bit. "Buffy, do you think Spike could have done this to you?"
I shook my head. "No, he's changed. He wouldn't be trying to double cross us."
"Anyone else?"
"I would say Julia, but I think that's more out of my complete dislike of her then anything else."
Giles walked over and started pulling volume after volume off of the shelf. "It's not much to go on but it's a start. We can try and find out what Leon's been doing over the past hundred or so years. Maybe he acquired the kind of magic to send you back here. Either way I don't think we're going to find much here. Just hope that we get lucky."
And that was it. Hour after hour went by with all of us having our noses buried in a book, not finding a single thing that might lead us to solving the puzzle we were currently presented with. Everything that I had talked about took place three hundred years in the future. With resources that were currently only dated to the early nineteen eighties, it was highly unlikely we would be able to find anything of use. But we still sat and read until our eyes became dry and blurry from the strain they were put under.
"That's it." Xander shut his book and started rubbing his eyes. "I just read the same sentence six times and I still don't know what it says. I need to get some sleep."
Giles yawned wearily. "Yes, maybe we should pick this up tomorrow. There's nothing more we can do now."
"Alright." I half hear tingly agreed. "Tomorrow." I waved a tired goodbye before I stumbled out of the library. I was amazed I was able to sit in there that long. Every second spent in there was just reminding me of the life that I currently shouldn't have. The one that was dead and over with. By the end of the night I was so pressed to get out of there that the last two words I spoke was about all I could do before I started screaming. I loved them all but to see them again just reminded me to much of what I couldn't have.
Praying that these feelings and guilt would just go away, I started heading home. The only problem was that I felt like if I went to sleep I'd just be wasting time. The few precious hours that I would allow myself to sleep were more minutes ticking off the clock. More time I wasted on something as trivial as rest when I could be looking for a way back home. But things pretty much looked hopeless right now. There was no way to really tell what would happen years and years in the future, there was absolutely no way of telling who even sent me here or how they did it, and without that knowledge, how was I supposed to be sent back? We were searching for an answer that didn't even exist.
Even with all these thoughts racing through my mind I managed to climb up the terrace outside my window and get into bed. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.
"Morning Giles." The doors to the library swung open as I pushed them gently out of my way. It was barley even six and yet he was here. He probably just went home for a quick nap and a change of clothes before coming back.
"Buffy, you're here early."
"I couldn't really sleep." I slipped into one of the chairs, curling my knees up to my chest.
"Understandable."
"Did you find anything?" It was stupid question but it seemed like a good place to start.
"No, and I don't think I will."
"Me neither." I buried myself deeper into my dark grey sweatshirt. "But you believe me right? You don't think that I'm just making this all up?" The verdict on that was still out to jury as of last night. Who was I to blame them either? If someone would have came up and presented me with the story that I had told, I probably would have told them to get lost almost the second I laid eyes on them.
"I believe that you believe it."
"Great. So you think I'm insane."
"I never said that Buffy. It's just that I had seen you a few hours before you and Angel came to me and you were perfectly fine. You were yourself. And then suddenly you and Angel show up at my house and you're spouting tales of being from the future. Now Angel told me that you had hit your head pretty hard that night and…"
I rolled my eyes, trying to control the desperate urges to yell at him until he believed me.
"Buffy, as I said before, it's quite a story. And if it is all true then I promise that I'll help you in any way possible. But I'm not all together convinced that it is yet."
"Giles you know me. Why would I lie to you? I have no reason too. And I've hit my head hundreds of times and never once came back with a story like this one. I don't know what else I can do to make you believe me."
He sat down across from me and looked me in the eye. I held his gaze, knowing that this was the deciding moment. If Giles believed me then the rest would easily follow suit. "I'll believe you until reasons come up to make me think otherwise."
I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding. "Thank you."
"Buffy," His voice still held the serious tone to it as he kept his eyes straight on me. "You might have to settle for helping the future from here. Maybe with your knowledge we could prevent the events that now plague the earth in the first place."
That was already a thought that I had tossed and turned about the previous night. "What if I can't though? Whoever did this to me was smart. They wanted me out of the way for good. I think they would have anticipated the fact of me trying to change the future Giles."
"I don't know what else to tell you. There will be absolutely nothing in the books that will be any use for us. The only thing that may help up is a spell of some sort. We could see if you have any residue left on you from the spell that originally sent you here, but I don't know how much that would even help us not to mention that I don't know who would cast it. It would take a witch of somewhat magnitude to reveal a spell cast by someone of great power."
Right on cue Willow walked through the door. "You guys couldn't sleep either huh?"
"Willow could do it." I immediately jumped up.
"Do what?'
"Buffy, what makes you think that Willow would be able to…"
"She becomes this bad ass witch in the future. Her first spell is one that takes years of practice to do. I bet you anything she would be able to pull it off."
"What are you guy's talking about?"
"Buffy, I don't know. A spell like this one could severely hurt her."
"Giles think about it. This one little spell might be able to help us figure out how to get me back. The kind of magic she does is already in her somewhere. It's not something you just learn how to do. You already have it in you. You're born with it. All she has to do is tap into that power and let it out."
"She is standing right here. What are you two talking about?" Willow looked at us apprehensively.
"It's up to Willow Buffy. That's not a decision I can make for her." Giles said. I could tell he was already hitting himself for giving me that kind of permission.
"Willow, you would do anything for me right?'
"Yeah, you know I would."
"Then how do you feel about getting a head start on your future?"
"So what exactly is this supposed to do again?
We were all standing around in the library when Cordelia asked the question. It had taken us twelve days to get Willow comfortable around magic. Which was considered an extremely short time, but when you know the things I know it's an eternity. Giles had started out just teaching her little things, not wanting to strain or hurt her. But yesterday he and I had put her to the test. All we had to do was put her in a situation where Xander and I were both in immediate danger and the power I knew she had in her all along was unleashed. Her eyes went black and the building shook, proving to Giles that she was more then capable to handle a reversal spell.
"In theory," Giles started. "Buffy should have some sort of residue remaining on her from the spell that sent her back here. Big spells like that always leave their mark. If that mark is still there, which there is a great possibility that it might not be after all this time, we may be able to gather the substance and reverse it, thus sending Buffy back to where she belongs."
"And if this doesn't work, if Willow screws up and says the spell wrong?" Cordelia had her hands on her hips.
"Let's not go into the repercussions shall we?" He had been refusing to tell me or anyone else what might happen if the spell somehow backfired. The only one that knew was him and Willow.
"Alright, Buffy, you have to stand in the circle there and whatever you do don't break the line of sand."
I nodded my head giving Angel's hand a squeeze before following Willow's orders and I jumped into the faint purple and green outline of sand that was one the floor. "Okay, now what?"
"Just stay there and cross your fingers that this works." She bit her lip muttering words of encouragement to herself. "Here goes nothing."
Sitting down right outside the circle she began to light her candles.
"Goddess Hecate, here my call. Show me the path of the unseen show me the lines of the unclean."
A bitter stench started to fill the room as moaning slowly filled the background.
"Let the mark of the future glow in the light. Let us put back what is right."
The moaning became louder and louder as the books started shooting off the shelf, one of them hitting Xander right in the eye. But Willow stayed still with her eyes closed and just shouted her words over the constant wailing in the room. She was a born natural
"Goddess Hecate, heed my warning. Guide us to the path of reversal. Show us where reality bends and the sands of time have folded."
"Umm, Willow? Maybe we should stop this." The sky above me had opened up, splitting the library roof in half, the sides peeling back to reveal the night air. Dark purple clouds were humming above and the rain shot down. But Willow couldn't hear a word I was saying as she began to slowly levitate off the ground. "Willow!"
"Buffy don't break the circle!" Giles called to me over the roaring sound of the wind.
The darkness of the clouds were slowly closing around here. Engulfing her into their wrath. I knew she was still chanting, I could see her mouth moving, but for the life of me I couldn't hear a word that she was saying. Shadows began to swoop down, weaving their way around the objects of the room, and slowly they began to surround me. They had almost taken on a life of their own. Their murky forms hovered right outside the circle, wailing and moaning at me, starring at me with what I could only assume were eyes. Taking deep breaths I stayed calm. Willow and Giles would both die before they let anything happen to me. At least that's what I told myself as the shadows talons started ripping into me.
I put up my hands in a desperate attempt to keep them away. All I wanted to do was fight them off. I knew they were really no match for me. But the circle was so small and tightly compact that I was afraid that if I moved the line would be broken and this would all be for nothing. So I covered my face to protect myself, taking a silent vow that if these things were still hanging around when this was all said and done, I would be sure to kick their ass.
And just as quickly as the talons and the ripping and the pain had started, it stopped. Along with everything else they just seemed to disappear into thin air. But when I opened my eyes I realized I wasn't in the library. I was expecting the worried faces of my friends to fill my gaze but instead nothing more then a simple ring filled my vision.
It wasn't all that elaborate of a thing either. It was nothing more then an emerald stone sitting gently on a golden band. But everything about it screamed power. It seemed to glow, lighting up the darkness around me with its bright green light. Slowly, as if I was pushing my way through sand, I reached for it. Stretching my fingers out, straining to touch it, to know what it was all about. But the second the tips of my fingers grazed its glossy surface a brick came down on me, crushing my fingers and the ruby gem underneath them.
Ignoring the biting of broken glass that was currently possessing my hand, I looked up to see who exactly it was that did this to me. Angel's soft gaze was the only thing that filled my eyes.
Quickly I sucked in air as the library's scenery came rushing back to me. Deep breaths were currently the only thought on my mind. My brain was acting as if it hadn't had oxygen for months and my heart pounded with the effort to will my body back to its working purpose.
"Buffy," Angel was by my side in an instant helping me sit up, holding onto me in almost a death like grip. If it wasn't so comforting I would have told him to let me go so I could breath better. Btu right now I just wanted my world to consist of two things. Air and Angel.
He waited, brushing strands of hair out of my face as I tried to regain my composure. All I could do was hold onto him. "Are you alright?" He asked as my breathing began to take on a much more normal pattern.
"I… I think so."
"Buffy I'm so sorry." Willow flew down to my side in an instant and hugged me fiercely. "The book said that they'd try to get to you but I thought I could hold them off. I'm so sorry Buffy. I swear I didn't know it would be that bad." She practically sobbed into my shoulder.
"Willow, calm down. I'm alright. Really, I'm fine."
Xander kneeled down next to us and gently pulled Willow away. It was then that I noticed how tear tracks stained the faces of everyone around me. "I'm going to go lay her down. You might want to talk to Giles about what just happened." He gave me a look, almost as if he thought he would never see me again, and picked Willow up. Him and Cordelia both took her into Giles' office to try and get her to regain her composer. The spell had taken a lot out of her from what little I had seen.
"What did he mean talk to you about what just happened?" I looked up at Giles, still feeling my heart leaping out of my chest.
"You don't know?" Angel looked at me strangely. "Buffy, you're heart stopped. You had been dead for twenty minutes."
"What?' I could barley even choke out the words.
"We've been sitting here trying to revive you… We were just about to give up when you suddenly just…"
"No… No I couldn't have died. A girl can only die so many times before going insane and I think I'm well past my limit." I was starting to panic. With the recent air loss from my body I could tell that I was a little more out of control then I licked to be. "I couldn't have been gone for twenty minutes either. Twenty seconds maybe, I'll even go with a full minute here, but there is no way in hell I was gone for twenty minutes. My dream didn't last that long…"
"Dream? What dream?" Giles looked completely intrigued.
"I don't know." I said slowly. My recent demise fled from me as that strange feeling I got from the ring flooded back over me. That should have been my first hint that something was different. "It just had a stone in it and then Angel smashed it when I reached out for it and…."
Oh my God. It just clicked. That gem. I had seen it before.
Without saying a single word I looked at Angel with wide eyes. My luck just might have changed.